Rebecca MacKinnon's postings about work, reading, and ideas from 2004-2011.

March 20, 2006

On March 22nd it will be one month since filmmaker and Global Voices Northeast Asia editor Hao Wu was
detained without charge. We appeal to the Chinese government for Hao Wu's immediate release!

What happened to Hao?

Hao Wu (Chinese name: 吴皓), a Chinese documentary filmmaker who lived in the U.S. between
1992 and 2004, was detained by the Beijing division of China’s State Security Bureau on the afternoon of Wednesday, Febuary 22, 2006. On that afternoon, Hao had met in Beijing with a congregation of a Christian church not recognized by the Chinese government, as part of the filming of his next documentary.

Hao had also been in phone contact with Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer specializing in human rights cases. Gao confirmed to one of Hao’s friends that the two had been in phone contact and planned to meet on
Feb. 22, but that their meeting never took place after Gao advised against it. On Friday, Feb. 24, Hao’s editing equipment and several videotapes were removed from the apartment where he had been staying. Hao has been in touch his family since Feb. 22, but judging from the tone of the conversations, he wasn’t able to speak freely. One of Hao’s friends has been interrogated twice since his
detention. Beijing's Public Security Bureau (the police) has confirmed that Hao has been detained,
but have declined to specify the charges against him.

The reason for Hao’s detention is unknown. One of the possibilities is that the authorities who detained Hao want to use him and his video footage to prosecute members of China’s underground Churches. Hao is an extremely principled individual, who his friends and family believe will
resist such a plan. Therefore, we are very concerned about his mental and physical well-being.

More about Hao: From Scientist to Computer Guy
to Filmmaker.

Hao began his filmmaking career in 2004, when he gave up his job as a senior product manager at Atlanta-based Earthlink Inc. and returned to China to film Beijing or Bust, a collage of interviews with U.S.-born ethnic Chinese who now live in China's
capital city. Before working for Earthlink, Hao worked as a product manager for Internet portal Excite from 2000 to 2001 in Redwood City, CA Before that, Hao had also worked as a strategic planning and product development director for Merchant Internet Group, an intern for American Express Co. and a molecular biologist with UCB Research Inc.

Hao earned an MBA degree from University of Michigan Business School in May 2000 and a Master of Science in molecular and cell biology in July, 1995 from Brandeis University, where he was awarded a full merit-based scholarship. Before studying in the U.S., Hao earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the China University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui province in June, 1992.

Hao the Blogger.

Hao has also been an active blogger, writing as "Beijing Loafer" on his personal blog, Beijing or Bust, named after his film. Due to Chinese government internet blocking of his blog hosting service Blogger.com, he also has a mirror version of the site on MSN Spaces. In early February Hao began contributing as Northast Asia Editor to Global Voices Online, an international bloggers' network hosted at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for
Internet & Society. Writing under the pen name Tian Yi, Hao's contributions aimed to bring citizens' online voices from China and the rest of North East Asia to readers in the English-speaking world.

Why didn't we speak out about his detention earlier?

Hao’s family and friends in China have deflected questions about his detention for the past month, as authorities in contact with people close to Hao have urged them not to publicize the case. There had been hope that his detention was only for a short period of time, in which case publicity would not have been helpful.

For more information...

Hao's family and friends inside China do not want to be interviewed directly by the media at this time, and thus we will not provide journalists with their contact information. We have set up a website dedicated to Hao's release at: www.freehaowu.org. It will be
updated regularly with new information that emerges about Hao's situation.

February 28, 2005

Seems like we have a theme for the week... Islamic governments going
after bloggers who believe their religion should be compatible with democracy and free speech.

Watch Chan'ad Bahraini for updates on first one, now THREE people jailed in Bahrain. Babbling Bahrania is also on the case with the latest about the plight of blogger Ali Abdulemam, plus Mohammed Almosawi and Hussain Yousif, all three of them moderators of Bahrainonline. According to Babbling Bahrania, "This is an arabic site which you can
access to get a flavour of the kind of debates. It has tended to be
highly critical of the government, although the moderators have always
maintained a certain standard of debate which is not abusive or
slanderous."

Bahrania asks: "if you knew u were going into custody, what would you pack in your suitcase?"

UPDATE: Bahrania's latest post shows the frustration of people who are sick and tired of the Bahraini Big Brother:

Our boys, Ali, Mohammed and Hussain will be forced to face a difficult
choice: close BahrainOnline.org, wipe out the database or face SEVERE
consequences. Will they stand by their principles and rights to free
speech and forsake their future? This is the choice they are facing
right now in that interrogation room.

Ali
was the visionary of this project, Mohammed was the brains, Hussain was
the voice. They're identities were never secret. Which one will break
under pressure? I'm sure they now realise this is no joke and the
government is DEAD serious on closing this site down. How long can it
go on clamping down on its people - banning foreign participants to
conferences, arresting people collecting signatures for a petition,
threatening the closure of political societies, arresting a human
rights activist, living on royal whims, blocking websites and now this.

Will Bahraini Big Brother do the right thing? Bahrania hopes international attention will make that more likely: "What else can we do? How do we know this isnt just some blogger frenzy and that the authorities are hearing this??"

February 24, 2005

On Wednesday, the blog Radio Free Nepal posted these pictures. Three editors of the newspaper Bimarsha weekly were summoned for questioning by police after publishing blank editorial pages in the paper: their way of protesting government censorship in the wake of Nepal's recent coup. Nepali journalists face arrest for defying censorship, but they are doing what they can to get the real news out by blogging through Radio Free Nepal. The blog points us to a Human Rights Watch report on atrocities being committed by both government troops and Maoist insurgents. According to the International Crisis Group, Nepal faces an "urgent human rights crisis in Nepal that requires international action." Keep an eye on the RFN blog for firsthand reports from Nepali journalists, blogging anonymously in order to avoid being thrown in jail.

Reporters Without Borders points out the irony that Iran, which is now "undergoing the Middle East's biggest-ever crackdown on online free expression," is also a participant in this week's U.N. preparatory meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which will be held in Tunis later this year. RWB rightly asks: "How can Iranian officials parade at a UN summit on the Internet at the same time as they are jailing bloggers?" Good question.

Time for the blogosphere to start caring about global internet governance before thuggish governments try to take it over under U.N. cover.

A new blog, Radio Free Nepal, has been set up as a place where Nepalese journalists and bloggers can post information anonymously... because they could go to jail if the government finds out who they are. The blog's header explains:

King Gyandendra of Nepal has issued a ban on independent news
broadcasts and has threatened to punish newspapers for reports that run
counter to the official monarchist line. Given that any person in Nepal
publishing reports critical of "the spirit of the royal proclamation"
is subject to punishment and/or imprisonment, contributors to this blog
will publish their reports from Nepal anonymously.